Some leave bigger scars than others while most just make us shake our heads in disbelief. And just when you think you heard it all…something so crazy, so off the wall, so ridiculous happens that you are either left speechless or rolling on the floor with laughter until your sides hurt.

While chatting with a fellow agent the other day, we came across some that were so out of this world, so unbelievable that she suggested I blog about it this week…and I listened.

A few years ago I had the seller of a cash transaction. On closing day, the international buyer showed up with a brown paper bag, filled to the top with hundred dollar bills wrapped in stacks of tens. He figured that if he was paying “cash” he could simply bring the cash to the closing, pay for the property and get the keys!

Then there was the mortgage broker, who was checking on a buyer’s credit and simply asked him the basic question that most lenders ask “so how is your credit?” to which the buyer responded “do you want my score before or after I did jail time?”

And don’t think sellers are left out of this mix of craziness.

Most of the time when you are showing a home, the sellers, if they still live there, leave. They let you have your time alone with the buyers to tour the home and then discuss what they liked or didn’t like about it in hopes of helping them with a decision to put in an offer or not.

On one occasion a few years back, I had the sellers of a luxury estate home. They had built the home themselves and designed every nock and cranny in it. I had to be present for all showings and on this particular day the seller wasn’t able to leave the home, so she promised me that she would make herself scarce and stay out of the way of the buyers as they approached. The buyers proceeded to tour the home with their agent as I pointed out all the numerous custom features throughout. As they finished, they stood in the foyer discussing the positives and negatives of the property and how they would change it to their liking and that they were ready to make an offer.

On that note, the seller appeared from nowhere, and began telling story after story about how they raised their kids in the home, where they put their Christmas tree each year, and that their two dogs made the backyard their final resting place. At that point, the seller broke down in tears, crying uncontrollably with the buyers trying to comfort her. Needless to say the buyers didn’t put in that offer because they just couldn’t take that home away from the seller who loved it so dearly.

That was three years ago – the home is still for sale.

Or how about the one where I informed the seller that I was bringing a buyer to see their home and when we opened the door, the seller was clinging to the banister on the main staircase, screaming that she could not sell her home because “voices were telling her that it wasn’t for sale.”

And then there was my all-time favorite…

Most of the time when dealing with sellers, as an agent, you don’t normally ask for their ID’s – why would you? You have their information from tax records, you have them sign everything for the listing which states all over the documents that the people signing are the rightful owners of the property, so what could go wrong??

The sale was going great – the buyers submitted an offer, the sellers accepted it, the inspection went fine and the appraisal was on point. At the closing table, as the buyers sat across from the sellers, the title agent asked for everyone’s ID’s. The sellers provided papers but no picture ID’s and the title agent insisted that they get them. The sellers went out to the car for them…but never came back!!!

It turned out that the “sellers” were actually the “tenants” who lived in the home and who took it upon themselves to almost pull off a sale of a property they didn’t own.